Tag Archives: brand design

Yes, savvy reader, it’s true. Almost everybody’s favorite Seattle, Washington-based, international speciality-coffee chain has a design flaw in its familiar, if not ubiquitous, mermaid logo.

Can you spot it? Do you see it? What is it? Look closely at the logo. (And c’mon now — don’t Google the answer! We dare you not to! We double dare you!)

Got the answer?

Ok, spoiler alert, here it is: The logo is round and symmetrical. That’s not the flaw. It was supposed to be perfectly symmetrical, but it isn’t. The right side of the mermaid’s nose has more shadow. This was actually intentional. So, in our opinion, you can’t really call this a “flaw.” (But Adweek and others have called it a flaw.)

When the perfectly symmetrical version of the logo was reviewed, the designers felt that the mermaid looked to cold and lacked humanity. Adding that extra shadow on one side made all the difference in making the logo that bit warmer and friendlier.

Suddenly, we want to find the nearest Starbucks, use the restroom there, and then maybe buy a coffee. Or at least ask for a cup of water.

Hands-down the the Hawaiian Airlines airplane branding is the sexiest ever in the goddamn history of the world. Period. It’s expressed on the tails of its aircraft as a graphical image of a young Hawaiian (we presume Hawaiian) woman shown in profile with a flower in her fair.

Seeing her image on the tail fin of a Boeing 747, you can practically smell the heady, fragrant mix of island flora and coconut oil, you can feel the embrace of warm sand under you feet as you sip a mai tai and let yourself slip into a drunken tropical stupor. Somewhere in the distance you hear the melty slide of a steel guitar and entrancing rhythms of gentle waves crashing.